A Great Journey of Indian Railways since 1853

Indian railway is world’s largest railway networks started on 16th April 1853 between Bombay to Thane. A Great Journey of Indian Railways since 1853 owned by Indian Government under railway ministry and here is interesting facts about it-

Journey of Indian railways –

1. Indian Railways runs between two Indian adjacent countries, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

2. The first air conditioned train introduced in 1934 was Frontier Mail (Now Golden Temple after 1996) used Ice blocks to cool train.

Ice blocks to cool train

3. The first Indian railway built by Great Indian Paninsula Railway (GIPR) and the concept taken from London.

4. Indian railways tracks are very long and it would circle the earth almost 1.5 times.

5. Indian Railway have world’s largest platform in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, measuring 1366 meter (1.37 km) while Kharagpur comes have second largest platform with 833 meter (0.83 Km).

6. Its ranked on 7th position in world as an employer, below is briefing list-

Rank

Employer

Employees in 2015

Country

1

United States Department of Defense

3.2 million

United States

2

People’s Liberation Army

2.3 million

China

3

Wal-Mart

2.1 million

United States

4

McDonald’s

1.9 million

United States

5

National Health Service

1.7 million

United Kingdom

6

China National Petroleum Corporation

1.6 million

China

7

Indian Railways

1.54 million

India

8

State Grid Corporation of China

1.5 million

China

9

Indian Armed Forces

1.3 million

India

10

Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn)

1.3 million

Taiwan

7. There was no toilets in Indian Railways before 1909 and the first computerized reservation started in 1986 in New Delhi. The following letter wrote by Okhil Chandra who requested to start toilets in Indian Railways.

12. Navapur railway station comes in two states, 1st half in Maharashtra and 2nd half in Gujarat.

13. There are two railway stations named as Srirampur and Belapur in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra comes under one place with two stations and the both stations are on opposite sides of same track.

14. The longest registered station name is Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta (Chennai) and shortest stations names is Ib (Jharsuguda ,Odisha) and Od (Anand, Gujarat).

15. There is a diamond point in Nagpur where tracks are totally perpendicular to each others where train runs North , East, West and South.

17. Fairy Queen express is one of oldest Indian locomotive train with steam engine and its still in use.

18. Delhi is one of the largest national railway museum in Asia out of total eight railway museums in India- Delhi, Pune, Kanpur, Mysore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ghum and Tiruchirappalli.

19. Usually, Fans, lights and all home appliances used 220 Volts to operate but Indian railways appliances used 110 volts. It was started to save railways property from thieves.

20. Railways sound level is quite close as 1.2 Hz ~ 72 bpm so human being can easily sleep while running train.

The Journey of Indian railways since 1853 is not only limited to India but also famous in world because ‘The Chatrapati Shivaji terminus’ and ‘The mountain railways of India’ is declared as world heritage sites by UNESCO.

In term of area India is placed at 7th number in the world and it keeps second most populated country. India is like a sub-continent rather than a country. India has different parts and so many languages, cultures, manners and has different historical backgrounds. Official name of the country is Republic of India and Indians call their country as INDIA. Two other names for India are BHARAT and HINDUSTAN which is less known outside of India.